Homily for Trinity XIII

It’s very easy to be judgemental, and to write people off when they do something wrong, or something with which we do not agree. It is particularly easy when emotions run high, and we feel rather than think. Emotion clouds our judgement, and we give way to anger. This is never a good thing to do. 

In our first reading this morning from the Book of Exodus we hear that the people of Israel have fashioned for themselves a golden calf, an idol, a false God, whom they worship. They are a stiff-necked people: stubborn and obstinate, who will not listen to God, or do what leads to their flourishing. They deserve to be destroyed, and yet Moses prays for them to God, to be merciful, and to remember His covenant with His people. In this we see God’s grace and loving-kindness at work. It reminds us that false gods are not a good thing, and if we follow them, then we are not following God, honouring Him, or living in a way which will lead to our flourishing. 

In our second reading from St Paul’s First Letter to Timothy we see that Paul has gone from being a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an insolent opponent, to something else. He has become a champion for the Christian Faith, that ‘Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the chief’. His words are ours too. Like Paul we have received God’s mercy. We don’t deserve it, just as the Israelites didn’t. That’s the point, we don’t earn forgiveness, God in his love and mercy forgives us, so that we might become something other than we are. This is the wonderful truth at the heart of the Gospel.

It is something which the scribes and pharisees in the Gospel cannot understand. Our Lord hangs around with tax collectors and sinners. These are people who collect taxes for the Romans. They were corrupt, because they had to bribe officials to get the job, and were expected to skim some extra off the top to settle their debts, and provide for themselves. Jesus goes out of His way to spend time with people who were despised, collaborators with a foreign power. The religious authorities, by contrast, are judgemental and superior. Jesus eats with people who are beyond the pale, defying social conventions, and looking beyond them to see people who need God’s love and mercy.

To illustrate His point Christ tells two parables. In the first, the Parable of the Lost Sheep, a man leaves the ninety-nine sheep to go after one which was lost. The point is that there is more joy in heaven over one sinner that repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance. The scribes and pharisees think that they are righteous, but are not. The sinners and tax-collectors know that they are not righteous, but by being close to Jesus, in their humility, repentance is possible. It’s a key to the Christian life, turning away from sin, and turning back to God. It is less of an event and more of a process, something which we keep doing, throughout our lives. It’s easy to fall back into sin, but God does not abandon us. He keeps going after the lost sheep. This is good news: we are not written off. But we have to keep our end up. We have to believe in God, and trust Him, and repent, turn away from our sin, and turn back to God. 

The scribes and the pharisees think that everything is alright between themselves and God. They keep the letter of the Law, but are far away from its spirit. The sinners and tax-collectors know that things aren’t right, which is why they are drawn to Jesus. But Jesus doesn’t wait for them to change before deeming them worthy of Him, instead he receives them and eats with them. God in Christ comes alongside us, seeking the lost, because God LOVES us. As St Paul says, ‘Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners’. To save us from sin, to save us from something which we could not save ourselves from. 

How does He do this? On the Cross, where Christ demonstrates God’s love for us, dying the death of a common criminal. It shouldn’t make sense. It is scandalous. But such are the lengths God will go to for love of us. Through God’s love we are reconciled and forgiven. As a sign of this Christ comes to eat with us here, this morning. He gives himself, His Body and Blood for us, and He feeds us with them, so that we might have life in Him. We can touch and taste the reality of God’s love. 

It’s an excuse for a party, as Christ says in the Gospel, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost’. God is not like the grumbling scribes and pharisees, being judgemental. He rejoices to welcome sinners back into the fold. He is merciful, and we have received that mercy. So let us rejoice that God has sought us out, and brought us back and restored us. As we celebrate the feast of the Kingdom of God, here today, may we be encouraged, and filled with God’s love and mercy, so that He may transform our lives. Strengthened by His Body and Blood may we live lives of faith and encourage others to do so, so that all people may give praise to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, to who whom be ascribed as is most right and just, all might, majesty, glory, dominion, and power, now and forever. AMEN.

Homily for Trinity XIII

It’s very easy to be judgemental, and to write people off when they do something wrong, or something with which we do not agree. It is particularly easy when emotions run high, and we feel rather than think. Emotion clouds our judgement, and we give way to anger. This is never a good thing to do. 

In our first reading this morning from the Book of Exodus we hear that the people of Israel have fashioned for themselves a golden calf, an idol, a false God, whom they worship. They are a stiff-necked people: stubborn and obstinate, who will not listen to God, or do what leads to their flourishing. They deserve to be destroyed, and yet Moses prays for them to God, to be merciful, and to remember His covenant with His people. In this we see God’s grace and loving-kindness at work. It reminds us that false gods are not a good thing, and if we follow them, then we are not following God, honouring Him, or living in a way which will lead to our flourishing. 

In our second reading from St Paul’s First Letter to Timothy we see that Paul has gone from being a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an insolent opponent, to something else. He has become a champion for the Christian Faith, that ‘Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the chief’. His words are ours too. Like Paul we have received God’s mercy. We don’t deserve it, just as the Israelites didn’t. That’s the point, we don’t earn forgiveness, God in his love and mercy forgives us, so that we might become something other than we are. This is the wonderful truth at the heart of the Gospel.

It is something which the scribes and pharisees in the Gospel cannot understand. Our Lord hangs around with tax collectors and sinners. These are people who collect taxes for the Romans. They were corrupt, because they had to bribe officials to get the job, and were expected to skim some extra off the top to settle their debts, and provide for themselves. Jesus goes out of His way to spend time with people who were despised, collaborators with a foreign power. The religious authorities, by contrast, are judgemental and superior. Jesus eats with people who are beyond the pale, defying social conventions, and looking beyond them to see people who need God’s love and mercy.

To illustrate His point Christ tells two parables. In the first, the Parable of the Lost Sheep, a man leaves the ninety-nine sheep to go after one which was lost. The point is that there is more joy in heaven over one sinner that repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance. The scribes and pharisees think that they are righteous, but are not. The sinners and tax-collectors know that they are not righteous, but by being close to Jesus, in their humility, repentance is possible. It’s a key to the Christian life, turning away from sin, and turning back to God. It is less of an event and more of a process, something which we keep doing, throughout our lives. It’s easy to fall back into sin, but God does not abandon us. He keeps going after the lost sheep. This is good news: we are not written off. But we have to keep our end up. We have to believe in God, and trust Him, and repent, turn away from our sin, and turn back to God. 

The scribes and the pharisees think that everything is alright between themselves and God. They keep the letter of the Law, but are far away from its spirit. The sinners and tax-collectors know that things aren’t right, which is why they are drawn to Jesus. But Jesus doesn’t wait for them to change before deeming them worthy of Him, instead he receives them and eats with them. God in Christ comes alongside us, seeking the lost, because God LOVES us. As St Paul says, ‘Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners’. To save us from sin, to save us from something which we could not save ourselves from. 

How does He do this? On the Cross, where Christ demonstrates God’s love for us, dying the death of a common criminal. It shouldn’t make sense. It is scandalous. But such are the lengths God will go to for love of us. Through God’s love we are reconciled and forgiven. As a sign of this Christ comes to eat with us here, this morning. He gives himself, His Body and Blood for us, and He feeds us with them, so that we might have life in Him. We can touch and taste the reality of God’s love. 

It’s an excuse for a party, as Christ says in the Gospel, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost’. God is not like the grumbling scribes and pharisees, being judgemental. He rejoices to welcome sinners back into the fold. He is merciful, and we have received that mercy. So let us rejoice that God has sought us out, and brought us back and restored us. As we celebrate the feast of the Kingdom of God, here today, may we be encouraged, and filled with God’s love and mercy, so that He may transform our lives. Strengthened by His Body and Blood may we live lives of faith and encourage others to do so, so that all people may give praise to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, to who whom be ascribed as is most right and just, all might, majesty, glory, dominion, and power, now and forever. AMEN.

Twenty-fourth Sunday of Year B – Who do you say Jesus is?

In the Gospel this morning we see the importance of Questions and Answers. Jesus first asks the question, ‘Who do people say that I am?’ The disciples answer, saying what they’ve heard people say, ‘some say John the Baptist, others Elijah or one of the prophets’ J. Jesus then asks the question, “But who do you say that I am?” (Mk 8:29 ESV) He asks that question to His disciples, and he asks it to us: Who do we say Jesus is? Just a man? A Holy Man? A spiritual teacher? Or something more? Are we happy to say that he’s a prophet, but just a man, to deny His Divinity, or can we say that He is the Christ, the Son of the living God. If we are happy to say this is this simply the end of the matter or is more asked of us? We have to say that He is the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of the Living God. Nothing else will do! Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Muslims, Unitarians, and many other people will say many things about Jesus, but not that he was the Messiah, the Anointed One, who would save people from their sins. He is truly God, and truly man, born of the Blessed Virgin Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit. 

Peter confesses who Jesus is, but then Jesus goes on to teach His disciples ‘that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again.’ (Mk 8:31 ESV) Because Jesus is who He is, the Messiah, the Son of God, then He has to die. In our first reading from the prophecy of Isaiah it is clearly foretold that the servant, that is Jesus, will be rejected and mistreated, and killed. Now Peter clearly doesn’t like it, he doesn’t understand how people could treat Jesus this way. Peter can only see things in human terms, and despite confessing that Jesus is the Messiah, Peter doesn’t want Jesus to suffer and die. He doesn’t fully understand what this means. It has to happen, so that Scripture might be fulfilled, and to show the world how much God loves us. God loves us SO MUCH that he gives his own Son to suffer and die, so that we might live. 

So Jesus says to the assembled crowd, including His disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.” (Mk 8:34-5 ESV) We are Christians, through our common baptism, we follow Christ, we do what He says. So this applies to each and every one of us. We have to deny ourselves, take up OUR cross, and follow Jesus. 

We have to deny ourselves — Now I know that I’m not good at saying, ‘No’. But I have to, I try to, and that’s the point. Denying ourselves means that we don’t put ourselves, or thoughts and desires at the centre of our lives — we put God there, where He belongs. God gives us GRACE to do this: through prayer, through reading the Bible, through the Sacraments of the Church, to help us.

We have to take up our Cross. The Cross is an instrument of torture and death, and it means pain and suffering. That is not pleasant or easy. We can understand why Peter says what he does, but the Christian life is not easy or without suffering. Mother Teresa, St Teresa of Calcutta once said that, “Suffering is a sign that we have come so close to Jesus on the cross that he can kiss us and that he can show that he is in love with us by giving us an opportunity to share in his passion.” (My Life for the Poor, 77) When we suffer, we are close to Christ, we share in His Passion, and are conformed to His image. It is part of the mystery of God’s love, that it can transform us, but that transformation is not pleasant or easy, but in it we experience God’s LOVE. 

We have to follow Jesus, we have to do what He says, which sounds easy in theory, but in practice is rather difficult. It is something which we do together, as a Church. Love and forgiveness sound easy, but they aren’t.  They make demands on us, and force us to do things that we might not like to do. But we can support each other, and rely upon the grace of God to help us as we try to do this.  

Our Faith is first and foremost about our relationship with Jesus Christ, someone who loves us so much that He dies for us. He takes away our sins, and restores our relationship with God and each other. And he gives himself here to us today, under the outward forms of bread and wine, in His Body and His Blood, to heal us, and restore us.

What Jesus does for us and for humanity is wonderful. It is an amazing demonstration of God’s love for us. He calls us to follow Him and bear our own Cross. To follow Christ in living out that same suffering love, to show the same compassion to the world, the same forgiveness. To follow Christ is to experience pain and anguish, heartache and loss, there is no magic wand to make things disappear. But rather, as we try to live out our faith, stumbling and failing as we go, we are drawn ever more into the mystery of God’s love and forgiveness. We become people of compassion, of reconciliation, who can see beyond petty human trifles, squabbles, and arguments, to the Kingdom of God where restored humanity can be enfolded for ever in the love of God. 

Opposed to this are the ways of the world: the ways of money, and of power. Yet none of us can be saved by who we are or our possessions. Once we die they are of no use to us, and what then? All the wealth and power in the world cannot save our soul. They cannot make us truly happy in the way that following Christ, and entering into his suffering can. God’s love is shown most fully when Christ dies for love of us, when he bears the weight of human sin, wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities. This is how the Messiah reigns, not on a throne, but on a Cross. And when he comes at the end of time to judge the world, as he surely will, a judgement of which the Apostle James is all too well aware, let us not be among the adulterous and sinful generation of those who are ashamed of Christ, but let us instead be in Him, fed with Him, living His life, so that the world may come to believe and give Glory to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, to whom be ascribed as is most right and just, all might, majesty, glory dominion, and power, now and forever.